He would never have a lover.

He would be happy. He would be sad. He would be petty and kind. He would be manipulative and generous. He would be cutting and sweet. He would move from one cool loft to another and change all the color schemes. He would drink and stop drinking and start drinking again. He would buy original art and a particular breed of dog. He would make a load of money in real estate and lose another load of it on a business endeavor. He would reconcile with people he loved and estrange himself from others. He would not return my phone calls and he would read my first book and send me the nicest note. He would give my first child a snappy pair of ridiculously expensive baby trousers, and sigh and say he loathed children when I told him I was pregnant with my second. He would roar at Thanksgiving. He would crouch beneath the bed and say that he was a fire-breathing monster and he would laugh with all the grown-ups who got the joke.

And not even a month later—a week before Christmas, when he was forty-four—he would kill himself. He wouldn’t even leave a note.

I’ve thought many times about why Ian committed suicide, and I thought about it again when I read your letter, Beast. It would be so easy to trace Ian’s death back to that match, the one he said he would not unlight if he could.

- cheryl strayed